James Martin Chef (Hants)

What if there was a bloodbusiness built around the shooting of literally millions of birds every year, and that business had to find some way to convince a sceptical public that it wasn’t just dumping the bodies of all those dead birds but was turning them into food? One way might be to link up with a celebrity chef and sell the idea that said chef was somehow converting tonnes of dead pheasant, partridge and grouse into recipes that that said sceptical public could try at home. Step forward James Martin, “one of the nation’s favourite chefs and a well-known face on TV. He has presented James Martin’s Saturday Morning, Saturday Kitchen, Home Comforts and James Martin’s Great British Adventure, Islands to Highlands and James Martin’s French Adventure. He has also published over 20 best-selling cook books.” He is a ‘brand’ the public knows well. According to Fieldsports magazine which Mr Martin guest edited, Mr Martin grew up on the Castle Howard estate, learnt “to work gundogs as a young boy, and his passion for picking-up continues to this day. He “has long used his platform on primetime TV to proudly advocate for eating game” and is a regular on commercial shoot. He is the perfect chef to front the bloodbusiness of shooting then, and indeed he is happy to be the public face of the Game Fair, a huge marketplace for shooting. The Game Fair is promoted as “An annual gathering for people passionate about countryside pursuits, and the Great British Countryside” but in reality it’s a shop front for the bloodbusiness of killing birds and mammals for fun. Mr Martin says he loves “everything about the Show”, which is why he will serving up barbecued Partridge and game terrine in the VIP enclosure at the 2025 Game Fair. We’d be interested to see how well his vegan Roasted Cauliflower and coconut Tarka Dhal with Tamarind goes down, as it’s very difficult (being a member of said sceptical public and the target audience) to imagine why many vegans would ever step foot inside the Game Fair…